


all it was (was all about you)

by mimosaeyes



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Episode Tag, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, a little bit of softness and hope, post-169
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24438373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimosaeyes/pseuds/mimosaeyes
Summary: Post-169. Jon takes care of Martin, and remembers what’s most important.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 11
Kudos: 146





	all it was (was all about you)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lost by Dermot Kennedy.
> 
> Thanks [animaginaryquill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/animaginaryquill) for beta-ing and putting up with my whinging.

It feels like ages before they finally make it out of the burning building. Martin shuts down after a while, going somewhere else in his head while he lets Jon lead the way. The only sensations he registers are the stinging of his eyes from all the smoke, the ache in his chest as he coughs convulsively — and Jon’s slight but steady presence at his side.

He’s ducked under Martin’s arm and is supporting part of his weight. It’s not that Martin really needs help walking. His head’s a little woozy and his limbs feel like molten lead in the heat, but physically, he’s relatively unharmed. It’s something else about the domain of the Desolation that’s so enervating to him; something affective.

The route they take is circuitous and unlikely. Each time there’s a fork in the corridor, Jon seems to pick the path that Martin thinks would lead them deeper into the labyrinth, not out of it. Firelight flickers under almost all the doors they pass by. The cries for help rise and fall in volume as they approach each door, then leave it behind.

Martin knows why you shouldn’t open doors during a fire. It spreads the oxygen around, feeds the flames just as you try to escape them. Better to seal off a room and let it burn itself out. Acceptable losses. The logic of landlords; he’d heard some of what Jon was recording before he managed to snap him out of it to warn him about Jude Perry. 

God, this place is getting to him.

“We’re nearly out,” Jon says then, giving his arm a squeeze. “This way.”

“Wait.” 

They’ve been passing exit signs at regular intervals. Jon has been ignoring them, and even Martin has noticed that they contradict one another, deliberately confusing victims who are trying to escape. Now he walks back to the last one they saw, reaches up, and snaps it off the low ceiling. The material is of shoddy quality, like everything around here, so he manages this easily enough. 

The door to the outside looks deceptively like it leads to a supply closet. Jon holds it ajar after them while Martin jams the exit sign in as a doorstop. Hopefully its odd positioning will stand out to the next people who stumble by, looking for a way out.

Only then does Martin turn, exhale, and take his first breath of fresh air since they willingly walked into the inferno.

It sends him into another coughing fit, of course. His lungs are still inflamed from all the soot particles and noxious gases back there. Jon grabs for his hands and pulls him forward, putting more distance between them and the sprawling complex.

When they can no longer feel heat on the backs of their necks, they stop. They’ve arrived on the banks of what probably used to be a small pond, the kind cows and other animals might gather around at midday. Martin averts his eyes from the grey and bubbling primordial soup that it is now, vaguely afraid he might see something crawl out onto shore.

He coughs again as he sits down, but the pain that blossoms in his chest isn’t red-hot anymore. Jon was right about that at least. The moment they left, he began to feel better.

Jon shrugs off his backpack and rummages through it, eventually producing a bottle of water he’d filled an eternity ago from the kitchen tap in the cottage. They hadn’t felt the need to eat or drink in so long that Martin had forgotten all about it.

“Here,” Jon says. Martin takes a swig, pulling a face at the water’s tepidness and the aftertaste of plastic. He swallows some more anyway, trying to get rid of the acrid smell of burning in the back of his throat.

As he gives the bottle back, he notices — very belatedly — the scorch marks in Jon’s sleeves and the burns on his arms. He freezes. He’s very familiar with Jon’s existing scars, so he can tell at once that these are new.

“What?” Jon asks.

Martin’s hand shakes a little as he touches Jon’s arm. They had had to go through one particularly bad room on their way out. Not just on fire, but angrily, vindictively so, the air so hot and viscous that breathing had felt like filling his lungs with boiling liquid. As they staggered through, Martin hunched over and curled into himself, part of the ceiling had given way in a shower of sparks and debris. There’d been so much going on, he’s only now realising that Jon hadn’t been clutching onto him reflexively. He’d been shielding him with his own body, and he’d been burned.

“Martin? Martin, it’s fine. No permanent harm, remember?”

He’s right, of course; Martin can already see the marks fading. “That doesn’t make it okay,” he scolds. “It still hurt, didn’t it? And pain can — can damage you in other ways.”

Jon mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like, “Better me than you, I’m almost used to it.”

Martin gapes at him. “You absolute idiot, that’s even worse!”

His voice breaks, just a little, on the words. Jon looks up at the sound. “Oh,” he says softly. “I’m sorry. I’ll... I’ll try harder.” He lifts his hand and brushes away the hot tears Martin hadn’t even noticed he had begun shedding. 

His fingers are cool. Martin leans into his touch, closing his eyes.

Jon’s silent for a long moment. Then he says, “I’m sorry for making you go into that building.”

Martin raises his head. “You didn’t force me to do anything. I wanted you to confront Jude Perry, and smite her to kingdom come if you so pleased. I was terrified, sure, but I thought you should get your shot at vengeance.”

He means for this to reassure Jon, but while the furrow in his brow relaxes fractionally, it doesn't disappear. “Actually,” Jon says, “I don’t think today was about revenge, in the end. It didn’t feel... cathartic, what I did.”

Martin watches him closely. “Are you saying it was all for nothing?” Honestly, that would be kind of a bummer.

“No.” Jon offers him a small, luminous smile. “Because you stuck an exit sign in the door.”

He’d almost forgotten he’d done that. It had been instinctive. “Oh,” Martin says.

“That’s how we’ll win.” Jon lifts his hand to kiss it. “By not forgetting what’s important.”

“Which would be...?”

Jon looks at him, deadpan. “The empathy, altruism, and kindness at the heart of our shared humanity.”

Martin huffs.

Jon cracks a smile. “And you, Martin. Always you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Available on tumblr [here](https://mimosaeyes.tumblr.com/post/619456002598797312/post-169-jon-takes-care-of-martin-and-remembers).


End file.
